1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of cooking appliances and, more particularly, a microwave energy intensification system for producing a uniform cooking environment in a conveyorized microwave oven.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
In general, commercial or high volume microwave processing of certain types of food items results in lower food quality. This reduction in quality is primarily due to uneven cooking or heating of the food items. Typically, central and peripheral edge portions of the food items are not heated to the same temperature for the same time period. This is particularly true when cooking food items having different densities, such as egg products, meat products and filled pastry products.
For instance, when cooking food items for commercial purposes, it is often desired to establish a target temperature throughout a particular food item. Unfortunately, heating a central portion of the food item to the target temperature results in the outer edges of the food item reaching temperatures well beyond the targeted value. Consequently, the edges of the food item are over-cooked and the central portion of the food item under cooked. Actually, if the edges of the food item are not allowed to “burn” for a sufficient time period, the central portions may not achieve the targeted temperature.
Various methods have been proposed in the prior art to uniformly cook a food item. However, most of the methods proposed inherently involve various tradeoffs which negatively impact cooking efficiency, food costs and processing times. Specifically, it has been proposed to increase the microwave power by adding additional microwave generators to the system. However, increasing the number of generators not only requires additional space, but also creates cost concerns which will be negatively received by the food processing industry. Other proposed methods include processing the food for longer time periods at reduced power levels, reformulating the food items and using a single mode microwave oven design, all of which necessarily increase cook times, or otherwise effect the cost and/or size of the oven which, in the highly competitive field of microwave cooking, is not acceptable.
Based on the above, there exists a need in the art for a microwave intensification system which will provide a uniform cooking environment in a commercial oven. More specifically, the microwave intensification system will cook a food item in a manner that results in a uniformly cooked, final product.